


i've gotten used to the crash and burn

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Dubious Consent, F/M, Gen, Introspection, Skye has had a hard life, Skye is not an innocent little girl, Skye-centric, This is kind of depressing, serious mentions of dubious consent because Grant Ward, unorthodox stylistic choices for the win
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-27
Updated: 2014-04-27
Packaged: 2018-01-21 01:18:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1532321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Six people Skye has been.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i've gotten used to the crash and burn

1\. She is a thief. She's Mary Sue Poots but she never quite fits into the name. She never quite fits. She looks like she is trouble, the nuns tell her over and over, and then say something about Jesus saving her and Skye asks what is he saving her from and when is he coming exactly. The nuns look at her like she's just vindicated all her suspicions. And Skye would hate to disappoint those expectations so she starts stealing. She's eleven. She's just been returned like unwanted goods by another family. She steals make up and trinkets, and pens and endless amounts of strawberry gum. Bottles of soda when they fit inside her jeans and under her jacket. Other girls from St Agnes try it, putting lipstick and hairbands inside their pockets whenever they let them visit town – but they are too obvious about it and the nuns always catch them. The nuns never catch Skye. And she never needs that much lipstick, anyway, so she shares. She shares and she doesn't call it buying the love of the other girls. The other girls cheer her on and when she turns around they call her _dirty thief_ behind her back and Skye hears, of course she hears, that was the point; she spends one afternoon locked in a bathroom crying and then she doesn't cry inside this fucking building ever again. But she doesn't stop stealing, either.

She never steals anything from her many foster parents. She doesn't risk it, not even once she's been told they are getting her back to the orphanage. She kind of hates herself for it, for still abiding the rules when it's clear the rules won't buy her love anymore than stolen goods will.

She graduates to bigger stuff. Clothes for a start. It's easy cutting off the tags on these jeans. She only does it in big chains, she learns about stuff like loss prevention when she is fourteen. She doesn't feel good about it, but fuck it, the nuns would let her clothes fall apart if it were for them. Each new foster home comes with a set of newly-bought dresses and trousers and cute shirts from the hopeful parents but Skye never, ever wants to keep those. She develops her own system to dismantle alarms on music CDs. There's the books she could never afford, when she starts studying computer science.

She steals and steals. But they never, ever catch her. 

 

 

2\. She's a criminal. She's worn her fake real name for years now. She's made herself. She lives in her van and sleeps during the day, she takes showers in train stations or bothers friends to let her crash in their couch for a couple of days; she eats badly, eats little or way too much, she downs Red Bulls during sleepless nights of coding; she does shots of tequila with fellow hackers, last hack standing and she's always faster than what the alcohol does to her system she's way way too fast; she waits tables for a while but it's easier to just exchange favors for money, to upgrade the software of people dumber than her, to receive the kindness of strangers and sometimes not exactly the kindness (Skye looks in the mirror, calculates what that face is worth out there in the world, but the mirror is never hers it's always someone else's room); she hacks, she drinks, she doesn't steal anymore but that doesn't mean she's not a criminal; she hacks, she drinks, she barely sleeps, she laughs with friends, she dances slow and dirty on friday nights on the town, sweat pooling between her breasts and on the waistband of her jeans and shallow laughter and boys she could love if she had a heart; she gets closer, a little bit closer each day, she finds the file with the SHIELD seal on top of it, she struggles to divinate what could be behind the black redacted lines; she hacks, she hacks, she throws herself into a frenzy; she kisses Miles in the men's bathroom of a bar, tasting beer and familiarity; she hacks, she leaves for L.A. and she hates the sun, and then she doesn't, and she loves the coffee there, the food trucks and sidewalks and the street art in Santa Monica; she hacks, she breathes, she lives, she's a criminal, she records her conspiracy theory podcast at night, talking herself into a fake safety, ignoring the noises outside in the alleyway; she misses Miles and then she doesn't; she's a criminal, she meets Mike Peterson. She meets Grant Ward. And she meets Phil Coulson. She has no idea, no idea at all.

 

 

3\. She's a fake. _Coulson's protége_. Don't make her laugh. Every word out of her mouth is a lie. That's worse than anything – worse than the worst thing Skye has ever done. This is the worst person she's ever been. He hasn't said it but she can hear it in Coulson's voice. _He trusts her_. Skye didn't know that was the sound of it, Skye had never hear that sound, like an exotic bird whose song you're hearing for the first time in your life and it make no sense, might as well be just noise, because you don't have anything to compare. She hadn't thought it would feel this bone-crushingly bad, lying to these people.

This was not the plan. The plan was not falling in love with the team. The plan was not Coulson's trust and appreciation. That was something she had wanted, yes, but a lifetime ago, it's already too late by the time he meets her.

She's about to tell him once, when they are together in the back of the SUV, discussing Akela Amador and Coulson is talking about second chances like he really believes it and Skye wants so much to tell him, tell him _everything_ , she feels like she hasn't wanted anything this much in her whole life, feels the words burning in her throat with the desire to get out. She wants to tell him everything but she doesn't, because she's a fake. And then it's too late and she knows it's always been too late. It's too late to realize this is the last time she ever kisses Miles. Too late for Ward to be her SO. Too late for something other than contempt in May's eyes. Too late for her to want this. She's been playing house all this time – pretending she can be an agent of SHIELD. Don't make her laugh. People like her don't get to be SHIELD agents, people like her don't get to have this. Liars like her. The sound of Coulson's trust being shattered. She hadn't thought she would mind so much. Her team. _Her_ team. Their faces. She's no longer Mile's. She's no longer anyone's, she no longer belongs anywhere. There's no home, there could be no home. She's a fake so everything she owns is fake as well. She's the memory of the electronic bracelet around her wrist.

 

 

4\. She's a spy. She kisses Ward, pushing fear and disgust and more fear down, she's good at that. She's still good at that. She lets him put his arms around her and she returns the gesture. This is the plan and Skye always has a plan, always has an exploit. As long as she can convince him she is safe. As long as Ward doesn't suspect, she's not dead. She's not dead she's not dead she's not dead. This is not a game, but she plays it well, biding her time, trying for overenthusiastic with Ward – she knows Ward couldn't tell the difference. Or she doesn't know. She doesn't know this man holding her. She's not a killer. She wishes she were a killer. She wishes she could use one of the dozens weapons within her reach, twist a knife between his ribs and be safe. But she couldn't. She's not a killer and part of her still thinks _this is Ward_ like there could still be some explanation and this is not something she could ever do. Not even to save her own life. And Ward is a killer, but he hasn't killed her yet.

She's not dead but then she's not dead – _yet_. She meets Garrett again, his mask dropped. She plays her game; she feigns surprise at Ward's betrayal. She pretends her heart is broken. (Her heart is not broken, she is too scared for that; she is a coward she is a spy where does a heart fit into all this where has her heart ever fitted anywhere she has no heart she has no heart)

She bears Garrett's slow smile whenever he looks at her, and it feels more horrible than Ward's hands. She bites down her fear and the sickly taste at the back of her throat. She bides her time; they'll be here, her team – her _family_ , they'll come for her, they'll read the trail of breadcrumbs she's been leaving behind, they'll save her, her brave, loyal family. Meanwhile she nods when Ward says he doesn't want to hurt her, when he says he won't hurt her unless necessary. She looks at Ward's face and she remembers the man he wasn't, she has to make an effort to remember whatever she felt for that man has been replaced by horror, and then she remembers Koenig's murdered body above her and it's easy, reminding herself Grant Ward was never here in the first place. He curls his fingers over her forearm and repeats he won't hurt her and Skye swallows and nods again, and she must be convincing enough because she is alive and she is still alive when they find her, when they come to save her, her family, she is more or less alive when she sees Coulson's face again, not knowing she had missed it so much, she's alive when Simmons stares at her, all eyes and tender hands, looking for wounds (it's okay, it's okay, Skye wants to say, it's not skin what broke here), she is still alive to see May and Trip reduce her captors for their own reasons, alive to see Ward's blank stare as they put the handcuffs on him. She is alive, or at least alive enough to crush her body into Coulson's arms.

"I see you deciphered my message," she tells him, pretending she is still that Skye. She's so good at pretending to be herself, just ask Ward. She grabs Coulson's arms, deciding that he should never let her go and his hands are in her face and in her hair. He brushes strands off her forehead, trying to get a good look at her eyes. (No, no, she thinks, don't look, I'm terrified.) He says "Of course. Who else would call me _A.C._?" and he smiles through pain through her pain and she is no longer a spy, she's sobbing into the collar of his jacket, she's just the coward she's always been.

 

 

5\. She's a soldier. There's a war going on, even if they are one of the few to realize. It's lonelier this way. Arresting Garrett did nothing. He turned out to be just another pawn. Skye is not brave like a soldier but she will fight this war. Skye is not strong like May but she will endure like her. Skye is not brave like Coulson but she will fight by his side. Skye is not brave but who else is there to do the job?

They lose friends, gain allies. Plans go wrong, missions go south. Plans go wrong but never hers. She's only a part of the person she was before; Simmons still looks at her with those big, concerned eyes whenever someone mentions Ward – people still mention Grant Ward, friends and allies and strangers alike, some kind of cautionary tale perhaps. She's still a coward but she has come to understand it wasn't her weakness, what happened with Ward. She has come to forgive herself. Some days she almost forgets about it. Some days too much has happened since then. She thought she had been broken, but she had just been bruised. Bruises she can live with bruises she was born covered in.

She's stubborn, she holds on to her SHIELD identity long after SHIELD has become just a dirty word on politicians' mouths, long after even Fitz has learned the meaning of distrust, long after May has left and come back to them again. Long after Coulson tells her it's okay, she doesn't have to be like him. And Coulson looks at her differently these days. Or maybe she's just noticing now. It frustrates her that she can't tell. There's a weight to his voice now, she can feel the air around his words cracking with _something_ – something she's not prepared to hear. She is a soldier and next time Simmons ends up staying two weeks in the ICU and when Skye says "I don't want to see everybody I love die" Coulson tells her "I'm sorry" and he says "This won't last forever" but she knows he doesn't even believe it he's a liar too and he says "Don't run" because he knows that's her first instinct, always, she's a runner and a thief and a fake, and he says "I can't promise you this won't happen again" like he wants to promise her anyway and he says "Please stay with those who love you" like it means something like it means something else and he says "This is your fight, this is your story" and Skye knows he's right but there are things you don't want to say in the waiting room of a hospital while your best friend might be dying, there are these things very high on the list of things she can't say to Coulson, even if he is right. Specially if he is right. About everything. But she stays anyway. She's a soldier, if this is what being a soldier means. Soldiers don't run.

 

 

6\. She's home. She's safe and warm. She's loved. Sleeping next to Coulson. Sheltered by his chest and hands and scars. This is where she is now. Her place. Or: something that could be her place, someday. Coulson's lover. She never imagined herself like that, it's still a shocking word to pause on. She ends up here by small degrees, and then all of the sudden. She ends up here, guarding his sleep, more than the other way around. Coulson's protector. That makes a lot more sense, this other word, but both are equally true.

Coulson kissed her once. Skye tasted carefulness and familiarity. Nothing remarkable had happened that day. No one had died. She told him: _this isn't the time_ , thinking it mattered at all. He nodded and let go of her hand. She realized it didn't matter – it was Coulson, how many of her carefully conceived plans had he destroyed already. Even if she has no heart, even when she has no heart she still has this. Weeks later she was the one kissing him. Skye tasting something humble like possibility. It's not something she had expected, not something she thought she was in a position to want. It turns out she still has the capacity to _want_.

They don't talk about the future – not while they can't, while there's still the defeaning noise of battle outside. They don't talk about the future and they never talk about love. That's not what they call this. If they were calling it by a name. In the grand scheme of things it's almost inconsequential, if they go to bed together every night – because come the morning they have to get up again and fight. But run as she might Skye is smart as fuck and can see the correlation between the two. But Coulson is also smart as fuck and he might have figured it out even sooner, because he let go of her hand when she asked, held her when she came back. It does matter, who you choose to share the darkness with. It _has_ to matter, because nothing else has worked so far.

Skye is still afraid, she hasn't lost that. She's still a thief and a criminal, that will always be part of her. She's a fake, but faking it gave her the courage to become the real thing. She's a spy and a soldier and she'll be whatever is necessary to protect this sorry world. She's all the things she ever was, she's never hiding from that again. She's still alive, a coward, but alive. She doesn't have a plan. She's here and here she is safe and warm and loved, and _home_.


End file.
